Police: Watches Among Loot in Many Crimes

- By Therese Umerlik (PA) 1/27/17

Routinely, when I search for information about watches and the industry, I stumble upon news stories where wrist watches were allegedly taken.

So for this blog, I decided to aggregate some of those accounts.

A Canadian tourist sitting on a closed beach at 1:30 a.m. was robbed, said Miami Beach police. Not entirely surprising. And they took his cash.

Brisbane City Police in Australia are looking for a suspect who appears to be doing the old switcheroo by swapping high-end watches with convincing replicas. What a sleight of hand trick!

A watch was swept into a stash of army medals that police said were stolen from a home in Stourport in England. Among the medals were Golden jubilee medal, a former Yugoslavia medal, a Northern Ireland medal, and a British Empire medal. That’s pretty illustrious company for a yellow metal rotary watch with a brown strap to share.

After a family welcomed a girl into their home, she left with a wrist watch among other valuables, said police in Chandigarh in India. And yes, this occurred while the family was sleeping.

We all know stories about poor boxes in churches being robbed. Well, a family went to church and returned to discover that gold necklaces and a watch, among other items, were missing from their home, according to police in Tikobo No. 1 in Ghana.

Some accounts of watch thefts are not slim on the details. I could not summarize this information because . . . well, you’ll understand why:

“A Tag Heuer Monaco wrist watch, with a square black face and stainless steel casing, a black leather strap, silver coloured numbers and hands was among the items stolen, police said, adding that this watch is a limited edition numbered 4158 of 5000.

“Also stolen was a wind up Omega Sea Master chronograph analogue wrist watch with a black leather strap with holes punched in, police confirmed. It has a black face and the second hand is coloured orange, police added.”